SIR THOMAS BROWNE.—­Classed among theological writers, but not a clergyman, Sir Thomas Browne is noted for the peculiarity of his subjects, and his diction.  He was born in 1605, and was educated at Oxford.  He studied medicine, and became a practising physician.  He travelled on the continent, and returning to England in 1633, he began to write his most important work, Religio Medici, at once a transcript of his own life and a manifesto of what the religion of a physician should be.  It was kept in manuscript for some time, but was published without his knowledge in 1642.  He then revised the work, and published several editions himself.  No description of the treatise can give the reader a just idea of it; it requires perusal.  The criticism of Dr. Johnson is terse and just:  it is remarkable, he says, for “the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of sentiment, the quick succession of images, the multitude of abstruse allusions, the subtilty of disquisition, and the strength of language.”  As the portraiture of an inner life, it is admirable; and the accusation of heterodoxy brought against him on account of a few careless passages is unjust.

Among his other works are Essays on Vulgar Errors (Pseudoxia Epidemica), and Hydriotaphica or Urne burial; the latter suggested by the exhumation of some sepulchral remains in Norfolk, which led him to treat with great learning of the funeral rites of all nations.  To this he afterwards added The Garden of Cyrus, or The Quincunxial Lozenge, in which, in the language of Coleridge, he finds quincunxes “in heaven above, in the earth below, in the mind of man, in tones, optic nerves, in the roots of trees, in leaves, in everything.”  He died in 1682.

Numerous sects, all finding doctrine and forms in the Bible, were the issue of the religious and political controversies of the day.  Without entering into a consideration or even an enumeration of these, we now mention a few of the principal names among them.

RICHARD BAXTER.—­Among the most devout, independent, and popular of the religious writers of the day, Richard Baxter occupies a high rank.  He was born in 1615, and was ordained a clergyman in 1638.  In the civil troubles he desired to remain neutral, and he opposed Cromwell when he was made Protector.  In 1662 he left the Church, and was soon the subject of persecution:  he was always the champion of toleration.  In prison, poor, hunted about from place to place, he was a martyr in spirit.  During his great earthly troubles he was solaced by a vision, which he embodied in his popular work, The Saints’ Everlasting Rest; and he wrote with great fervor A Call to the Unconverted.  He was a very voluminous writer; the brutal Judge Jeffries, before whom he appeared for trial, called him “an old knave, who had written books enough to load a cart.”  He wrote a paraphrase of the New Testament, and numerous discourses.  Dr. Johnson advised Boswell, when speaking of Baxter’s works:  “Read any of them; they are all good.”  He continued preaching until the close of his life, and died peacefully in 1691.